State Senator Is Accused of Trying to Buy His Way Onto Ballot for New York City Mayoral Election

New York state Sen. Malcolm Smith tried to buy entry onto the New York City mayoral ballot by orchestrating bribes to Republican leaders, federal prosecutors charged Tuesday as they revealed details of a wide-ranging corruption probe that also ensnared a Queens council member and four others.

The criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday alleges a web of illegal activity connecting bribes on behalf of Mr. Smith's political ambitions to an upstate real-estate transaction and the use of state and New York City Council discretionary funds.

The 28-page document reads like a film-noir screenplay, with investigators at one point detailing an attempt by a defendant to frisk an undercover agent before allegedly accepting a $25,000 bribe. The charges sent reverberations across the New York political world, with tremors felt inside Democratic and Republican mayoral campaigns and in the state Senate leadership.

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Malcolm A. Smith after being arraigned
Peter Foley for The Wall Street Journal

Aside from Mr. Smith, a Democrat from Queens, federal agents arrested: New York City Council Member Dan Halloran, a Republican from Queens; Vincent Tabone, vice chairman of the Queens County Republican Party; Joseph Savino, chairman of the Bronx Republican Party; Noramie Jasmin, mayor of Spring Valley, N.Y.; and Joseph Desmaret, deputy mayor of the same village.

The defendants later appeared in federal court in White Plains, where Judge Lisa Margaret Smith set bail at $250,000 for each of them. Mr. Halloran was ordered to surrender two shotguns, one of which was seized by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents earlier.

Gerald Shargel, a lawyer for the 56-year-old Mr. Smith, said his client would plead not guilty if indicted. "The allegations in this complaint do not tell the whole story," Mr. Shargel told reporters outside the courthouse.

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New York state Sen. Malcolm Smith, left, and New York City Council Member Dan Holloran.
Reuters

Lawyers for the other five defendants said their clients would likewise deny the charges in the criminal complaint. "It seems to be that they are trying to make the business of politics as usual into a crime," said Vito Palmieri, attorney for Mr. Tabone, 46.

Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said the investigation had exposed "once again that a show-me-the-money culture completely pervades every level of New York government." All told, the complaint claims that about $130,000 in bribes changed hands or was promised during secret encounters at hotels and inside parked cars.

From the Investigation

Read the full complaint against New York State Sen. Malcolm Smith, City Council Member Dan Halloran and four other political leaders.

A Democrat throughout his political career in southeast Queens, Mr. Smith explored the possibility of running for mayor this year on the Republican line. To be eligible for the nomination without party membership, he needed a special waiver from leaders of three of the city's five county-level Republican organizations.

Such waivers aren't uncommon in New York City politics. Mayor Michael Bloomberg dropped his Republican affiliation in 2007, and then secured permission from party leaders to run on the GOP line for his 2009 re-election.

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New York state Sen. Malcolm Smith, a Democrat from Queens, speaking in Albany earlier this year.
Associated Press

In his attempt to secure the waiver, Mr. Smith enlisted the help of two men he believed to be wealthy developers, the complaint alleged. In fact, one was a developer cooperating with the FBI and the other was an undercover FBI agent.

Prosecutors allege that those men paid Mr. Halloran, 42, more than $20,000 in cash to act as an intermediary with the two GOP officials, and $40,000 in total to Messrs. Tabone and Savino, 45, to support a waiver. If Mr. Smith had been elected mayor, the complaint alleged that Mr. Halloran expected to be appointed as a deputy police commissioner or a deputy mayor.

In one recorded conversation described in the complaint, Mr. Smith allegedly said that access to the Republican ballot was well worth the tens of thousands of dollars it would cost in bribes.

"Look, talk to me before you close it," Mr. Smith is quoted as telling an unnamed witness who cooperated with the FBI probe. "But it's worth it," Mr. Smith allegedly said of the bribes. "Because you know how big a deal it is."

The complaint also quotes Mr. Smith allegedly instructing an undercover agent on what would need to happen before one Republican leader would receive "even a nickel more."

The party official would "have to stand on the Empire State Building and drop every person [he] endorsed [for mayor] and hold Malcolm up and say he's the best thing since sliced bread. Matter of fact, he's better than sliced bread," Mr. Smith said, according to the complaint.

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Joseph Savino outside U.S. District Court in White Plains after being arraigned
Peter Foley for The Wall Street Journal

While Mr. Smith eventually met with Republican leaders, there appeared to be little support for granting the necessary waiver. Mr. Savino, the Bronx GOP leader, had signaled support for mayoral hopeful Adolfo Carrión Jr. before switching and endorsing former transit chief Joseph Lhota, the current front-runner in the race for the Republican mayoral nomination.

At the time he endorsed Mr. Lhota, however, Mr. Savino told The Wall Street Journal he wouldn't rule out the possibility of allowing non-Republican mayoral candidates to compete in the party primary.

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Daniel J. Halloran after being arraigned
Peter Foley for The Wall Street Journal

In February, an undercover FBI agent asked Mr. Tabone whether he could deliver the waiver for Mr. Smith to run in the primary. "I run the Queens County Republican Party. Nobody else runs the party," Mr. Tabone told the agent, according to the complaint.

During that conversation, the complaint describes Mr. Tabone frisking the undercover agent in an apparent search for a recording device. Later that evening, Mr. Tabone allegedly received $25,000 from the agent.

In addition to Mr. Halloran's alleged role in Mr. Smith's ballot quest, prosecutors claim Mr. Halloran took more than $24,000 in cash and illegal campaign contributions in exchange for steering up to $80,000 in City Council discretionary funds to a fake company he believed was controlled by the cooperating witness and the undercover agent. Mr. Halloran, a lawyer from Queens, is one of just four Republican lawmakers elected to the council.

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Noramie Jasmin outside U.S. District Court in White Plains after being arraigned
Peter Foley for The Wall Street Journal

"That's politics, that's politics, it's all about how much," Mr. Halloran allegedly said in a recorded conversation cited in the complaint. "You can't do anything without the f—money."

In a third prong of the investigation, Ms. Jasmin and Mr. Desmaret, mayor and deputy mayor, respectively, of Spring Valley are accused of taking bribes to rig a real-estate deal in the small upstate village of about 30,000 people.

The complaint cites a recorded conversation last year in which the unnamed cooperating witness allegedly discusses bribes with Ms. Jasmin, 49, and Mr. Desmaret, 55. Those conversations occurred months before the same witness allegedly began paying bribes to Mr. Halloran.

At issue was a community center for the Rockland County village, located about 30 miles from Manhattan. Mr. Smith had promised to steer $500,000 in state money to help finance a road that would benefit the project, federal prosecutors charged.

New York State Sen. Malcolm Smith and City Council Member Dan Halloran were arrested in connection with a plot to tamper with the mayoral race. Michael Saul reports. Photo: Getty Images.

The witness and Ms. Jasmin allegedly struck a deal that would give her a hidden interest in a venture that would buy land from the village and build the center, according to the complaint. The witness and an undercover agent also allegedly paid Mr. Desmaret $10,500 to vote in favor of the project.

Mr. Smith, a former Democratic leader in the state Senate, late last year joined a breakaway faction of lawmakers known as the Independent Democratic Conference.

That group, led by state Sen. Jeffrey Klein, now has a power-sharing arrangement with state Sen. Dean Skelos, a Republican, in which Messrs. Klein and Skelos serve as co-leaders of the majority coalition.

Mr. Klein on Tuesday said he would strip Mr. Smith of his committee assignments and conference leadership position. Mr. Skelos said he supported that decision.

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